By now you have heard all about the 2014 Ducati 899 Panigale, Bologna’s new “supermid” sport bike. You’ve heard about the Babigale’s 898cc Superquadro motor, which produces 148hp and 73 lbs•ft of torque.

You’ve heard about the Ducati 899’s monocoque “frameless” chassis design and 372.5 lbs dry weight. And of course, you have heard of the 899’s extensive electronics suite that includes ABS, traction control, engine braking control, and ride-by-wire.

But have you seen Ducati’s sport bike, and its double-sided swingarm? We have 117 high-resolution photos of it after the jump for, just in case you haven’t gotten a glimpse.

Remember, pricing starts at $14,995 for the red model, and $15,295 for the white model.

This bike looks great and should satisfy the sweet spot for real, usable street performance.

If you don’t like this bike then you are a Luddite, cranky jack-wagon with no sense of taste!

THE BARON HAS SPOKEN!

Spiffster

I agree with mr. Ballzak… this bike is Boss.

Will

Still can’t get over the fact that a bike that is 97ccs smaller than my 1st Ducati superbike is considered a middle weight.

It looks to me like Elbowz is riding in quite a few of those shots, granted in Ducati gear.

I wonder how many people are gonna put a dssa from the 899 on their 1199s?

shinigami

Babegai? No more like Punigali ;)

I keed, I keed.

Beautiful piece of rolling art but when you own bikes with both SSA’s and DSA’s you really appreciate the practical maintenance aspect of the SSA for things like tire changes and chain maintenance. I love the SSA on my VFR.

Damo

@shinigami

I agree, I think the 899 swing arm looks great, but I do like my SSSA on my new Hypermotard from a maintenace standpoint.

Side Note: I love VFRs and I think I really need to own a 750-800 VFR at some point in my life or my motorcycling soul will not be complete.

JoeD

Singles are more of a styling exercise than actually better. Since Aluminum is 1/3 the modulus of steel, It takes roughly 3 times the amount for the same stiffness. That is why Al frames are so massive looking and the steel trellis appears delicate. You may have one less arm to deal with during maintenance but the trade off in performance isn’t worth it. How many singles are there in MotoGP? Does the Single Arm actually do anything useful, performance wise?(WSB do not change tires during the race) Once again, Fashion is touted and embraced despite real world usefulness and design.

Will

“Trade off in performance isn’t worth it?” I’m not sure I buy that. SSSAs have been plenty competitive in racing history. Fred Merkel, Foggy, Kocinski, Corser, Bayliss, and Checa may disagree with that. Did I forget any one? The RC30, RC45, 916 to 998R, and 1098R have all proven that SSSAs work, winning 15 of the 25 seasons so far.

The time and ease it takes to adjust my chain or swap out the rear rim is worth it to me. Not to mention it gets me back out on track faster than my buddy with his dual sided. Any “difference in performance” is imperceptible to 99.5% of us mere mortals. IMO

philly phil

those riders had to use a SSA because of the homologation rules around the production bike. I’m sure if they could, they would have switched to a conventional Swing arm. hence why u don’t see it in MotoGP at all…

I don’t mind the swing arm at all…i just really wish they included the LED headlights.

Faust

The base 1199 doesn’t even have LED headlights, so why would this?

BBQdog

The DSA solves what I always saw as a design flaw on the Panigale: the rear wheel seemed as not attached to the bike. Almost like the rear wheel wasn’t in line with the rest of the bike like on this picture:

I’ve written about this before, but given the practicalities of a cast, one-piece swingarm – minimum wall thicknesses, multiple cores, etc. – a singe-sided swingarm can end up being as light and stiff as a double-sided swingarm. You don’t see them in GP because prototype swingarms can be fabricated from multiple billet, sheet, and forged elements and can achieve much lower wall thicknesses, not to mention demanding higher strength and different stiffness. Until someone weighs the pieces from the two Panigales (and compares them to, say, the welded piece on the S1000RR) I’d withhold assumptions about performance differences.

dave

interestingly, ducati tried testing a dssa with foggy during the 996 era, and foggy found no advantage. it’s true sssa are heavier than their dssa counterparts, but the wheel assy is lighter, pretty close either way. the real downfall of sssa in racing is every chain adjustment changes ride height, so gearing changes require geometry compensation. in the end, I think sssa just looks cool